I was woken early by the merry chirping of birds. I sat up (alone) in bed and stretched luxuriously. Cool air wafted in through my window along with morning sunshine. The sky was a cool deep blue and there was not a cloud to be seen. There was a smile on my lips and a fresh taste in my mouth. What the devil was going on?
I have never been a morning person. Admittedly, my friends and I had heard it rumored that people existed who did not get up grumpily at three in the afternoon to scrub their teeth and tongues with shaking hands for hours before giving up the futile effort to get rid of the acrid taste of too many cigarettes and too much whisky; as we huddled behind our newspapers in our dressing gowns and watched the sun go down while we began the slow and painful process of jump-starting our bodies by drinking pot after pot of strong expresso, we spoke with condescending envy of those fabulous beings who revelled in hearty breakfasts. And so the sensation of staring into clear wide-open eyes in the bathroom mirror filled me with awe and suspicion. What had Lucy done to me? Had I just dreamed her presence in my bed last night? Had my food been drugged? What were those pills that she had given me last night? Vitamins, hmmm...
I stood in the shower, waiting for the balmy torrent to cool and dwindle, but it didn't happen. Too many years of living in England had left me unprepared for the miracle of an endless supply of hot water. I dried myself with the largest softest towel I had seen since escaping from my mother's home in Kalifornia. As I went through the hour-long ritual of my toilette, I was struck by the contrast between the luxury I was enjoying and the hardships I had expected to face in Prague. But this extravagant building was not the city, I reminded myself, and I decided to go for a walk. I took the elevator down and looked around. An extremely pretty girl with short dark curly hair stood behind the reception desk. I walked up to the counter and stared. She smiled back, showing two adorable dimples in her peachy cheeks.
"Can I help you?" the pretty girl said in a disconcertingly high voice, her smile a row of little white milk teeth.
"I was told to leave my key here when I left the building. And may I buy some tram tickets, please?"
"You can't buy them. We just give them to you. Are you going out for the day? Let me give you your pocket money."
"That's all right. I've got some of my own money which I want to spend anyway. What's your name?"
"I'm Annichka," she squeaked. "Do they let you spend your own money? Are you going to work here?"
"I hope so." We looked into each other's eyes for an eternity. I imagined spending my life together with this beautiful creature, leading a modest happy existence in some suburban apartment, taking our dog for a walk in the neighborhood park, having babies... It was no use, I couldn't sustain the fantasy for long, she looked too young and happy, so I just took the tram tickets from her and left the building. Or rather, I tried to leave the building but a big scowling man in uniform blocked my way. I returned to the reception desk. "Annichka," I said plaintively. "How do I get out of this building?"
"Oh, that's easy," Annichka squealed. "Didn't they give you a pass when you came into the building? You have to show it to the gatekeeper."
"I think they carried me into the building. I was asleep."
"I'll make one for you." I beamed gratefully at her while she played with her computer. She gave me a small card like the one Lucy had given me in the dining hall.
"That's funny," I was about to say when some instinct warned me that it might be useful to have two passes. "Thank you so much," was therefore what I actually said.
"You're welcome. Peace and love!"
"Yeah, well, the same to you. Have a nice day!" I noticed with interest that the gatekeeper had a sub-machine gun by his side and that the doors letting me out into the outside world were made of inch-thick armoured steel.
I went into town and wandered around, gawping in unison with about a million other tourists at the splendid Baroque and Art Nouveau facades of the buildings in the city center. With some difficulty, I found an English newspaper and a cafe and sat down to write the postcards I had bought on an impulse in Wenceslas Square. Besides Flossie and Maya, I wrote to our mad friend Navel, whom I sadly missed. The only person who still called Navel by his original name, Neville, was his father, evil Mr. Pickie. "Poor Navel!" This had once been our constant cry and Navel had been the first to cry it aloud, literally from the rooftops. Floss and Navel and I were then all living together and from the living room of our penthouse flat, Flossie and I would see Navel pacing about the rooftop garden, obliviously trampling on Flossie's carefully cultivated basil plants, brooding over his sorrows, withdrawing his hands occasionally from the pockets of his tweed jacket to raise his arms to the heavens... It was his propensity to submerge himself into the contemplation of his navel (not to mention his unfortunate family name) that had earned him this sobriquet and also the contempt of his father, who, born in Leo and relentless in his life-long pursuit of shallow self-importance, could never understand the murky depths of the emotional world inhabited by his Piscean son... This, at any rate, was Navel's claim, and Floss and I had to agree, especially after Mr. Pickie, recognizing that his son would never follow in his footsteps as a high official wielding considerable power in the shadowy world of international financial organizations like the Zurich Club, cut Navel off without a penny, and ultimately placed him in a home for the mentally challenged, asserting that Navel's incapacity to support himself or to decide upon a career were proof of his moral imbecility.
Sipping the last dregs of an abominable cappuccino, I was still drawing lessons from Navel's sad fate when two men came up to my table in the crowded café and asked if they could sit down. I waved an arm at the empty chairs and withdrew behind my newspaper. I was engrossed in the comics for a while but then their conversation distracted my attention.
"What difference does it make who wins this election or the next one, if there is a next one?" the voice snapped. "Why don't you just go back to Santa Kruz and go surfing? Ride the waves before they flood Kalifornia. And the Maldives. And Bangladesh. But what do you care about those places? You've never even heard of them."
"Hold on," the second voice protested. "I'm a liberal too."
"I'm not a liberal. I'm a radical. You think it's possible to change things within the system. I know it's all over. Life on this planet. Everything. We're dead. We're ghosts. We just don't know it yet. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door..." The voice began singing loudly and discordantly.
I stopped pretending to read my newspaper and stared at the radical. A small slightly balding man with thin hunched shoulders and a pale freckled face, in his ragged green cardigan, he looked like a leprechaun. He could have been fifteen or fifty. His companion, the liberal, was in his early twenties. His cool glasses and long blond hair and flannel shirt and faded jeans ripped carefully at the knees put him in his place and he clearly liked it that way.
The radical opened a thick well-thumbed hard-bound volume. He seemed to be looking for a particular passage which he proceeded to chant out loud in a fast sing-song voice. "Negotiations among teams of scientists and bureaucrats representing national governments may indeed result in international protocols that would significantly reduce future ozone depletion if governments felt it in their short-term interest to enforce such agreements. However, the damage has already been done. The effects of global environmental degradation on the micro-molecular structures which permit DNA and thus species replication are already catastrophically irreversible." The radical closed his book with a thump and looked at us triumphantly. "What do you say to that?"
"I don't get it," the liberal confessed.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's a report published this year by an international team of experts who disagree with the propaganda line put out by governments. They did a big independent study which the media of course totally ignored."
"Who funded the study?" I asked.
"Good question. Let's see." The radical opened the book again. "Most of their funding came from something called the X-O-X Foundation."
"That's funny," I said, taken aback. "I've just started working at this university here started by someone called X-O-X."
"Is that the University of Truth and Justice?" the radical asked. "I just got a job there too. My name is Immanuel. Some call me Man. Ecce homo."
"And I'm Bob," the liberal said. "Me and some friends of mine from Santa Kruz just opened up an English language newspaper here in Prague. We just put out our first issue. There's lots of Amerikans living here. Maybe fifty thousand."
"What are they all doing here?"
"Just hangin' out. The beer is cheap."
"That's their slogan," Immanuel said bitterly, gulping down the rest of his beer. "I thought I'd escaped from Amerika when I came here two years ago. Now I'm thinking of moving to Saint Petersburg. But that's probably where they'll all move too. Rats. Leaving the good ship Amerika, now sinking after running into an iceberg made from the frozen waste of the world she exploited so long."
"Wow," Bob said uncertainly. "That's a little strong, isn't it? I mean, yeah, we're having problems right now but it'll get better some time, won't it?" Immanuel remained silent. "Won't it?" Bob appealed to me.
"I wouldn't know," I said evasively. "I'm not Amerikan."
"Say, you're right! Your accent is kinda funny. Where are you from anyway? Hong Kong?"
I hate being asked where I'm from. Especially by Amerikans. Tell them you're Canadian and they can't stop saying 'eh'. Once I would have felt compelled to give my life history. Now I knew better. "I was born in Mongolia." While Bob tried to decide if Mongolia was a place or a disability, I turned to Immanuel. "What job did you get at the university?"
"Teaching philosophy."
"But you sound like a scientist."
"I started off as a chemistry major," Immanuel confessed. "Then I went to medical school for a while. And then I decided to study philosophy. I've just finished my Ph.D."
"What was it on?"
"A French philosopher named Whineasse who writes about death. I was applying his insights to the problem of environmental catastrophe. How, as ethical beings, we should respond to the end of the world."
"And how should we respond?"
Immanuel dug around in his tattered canvas rucksack and pulled out another book, thick with little bits of paper inserted at practically every page. He dipped into it, nodding his head and smiling, humming softly now and again. Bob stared at him, open-mouthed. "And the only proper way in which I am allowed to act on the Other," Immanuel quoted, "is to go to his deathbed and to hold his hand as he lies dying."
"So we should just hold each other's hand?"
"What else can we do?"
"Can't we fight or something?"
"Fight what?" Immanuel smiled beatifically. "It's all over."
"So why not kill oneself?"
"What's the difference?"
"Nothing matters and so everything matters?"
"Exactly. We're so lucky. We are the first generation in human history who know that there will be nothing after us. Our lives therefore take on a unique meaning." Immanuel leaned over excitedly. "We can afford to be disinterested. Our every single action can now have total ethical value!"
"I've got to go, guys," Bob said, shaking his head as though to get rid of all this subversive talk that had seeped into his clean-living ears. He stood up. "Nice meeting you," he said, shaking my hand heartily. "Hey, Manny! You should meet this friend of mine who's just come over from Santa Kruz. Environment was his major in college too. You guys would get along."
"Sure," Immanuel muttered. "I love surfers."
"What do you have against surfing?"
Immanuel looked at me suspiciously. "Are you a surfer too?"
"I don't know what I am. What do you call someone who just moves around?"
"A vagrant?"
"What do you call a vagrant with money?"
"A tourist?"
"So I'm a perpetual tourist. Is that better than being a surfer?"
Immanuel considered this for a moment. "Only marginally. They're both repulsive. You want the world to entertain you."
"That's not true," I protested. "I have no expectations from the world. Just from my mother. If she ever dies."
"You don't like her?"
"She loves me. She wants me to come home and be with her. Old people are so selfish."
"Yes," Immanuel snarled. "They've destroyed this planet and with it the future of all life. It's worse than crimes against humanity. Old people are guilty for crimes against Life!"
"But what punishment would fit the enormity of the crime?"
"Death won't do. They'll die anyway. The sooner the better, I suppose. But I am not a Nazi! Probably the best punishment would be exile," Immanuel offered. "All the old people of the world should be forced to live together someplace like Vienna. They could all hang out together in baroque cafes, wheezing and snorting, choking on great gobs of whipped cream and sit snoozing in concerts given by geriatric cellists. Maybe they could have all of Europe. All of these big grey stone buildings and monuments, just to remind them of their mortality."
"And where would all the young people go? Youth in Asia?"
"I like you," Immanuel declared suddenly. "Do you play chess?"
"Never. I don't play games. Not even Monopoly. It's one of my few principles. Do you actually like being called 'Manny'?"
"I hate it. My parents used to call me 'Manny'. When they were feeling particularly affectionate, they would call me 'Mannikin'. It was usually when they had friends over. 'Come here, Mannikin!' 'Where are you, Mannikin?' 'Why are you hiding under the bed, Mannikin?' 'What are you doing with that razor blade, Mannikin?'" Immanuel laughed bitterly. "Can you imagine the humiliation? I spent five years in therapy over it. That was after my third subliminal suicide attempt, when I fell asleep smoking a cigarette in my ex-girlfriend's apartment and the couch caught fire and the whole building burned down."
"How many times did you try to kill yourself?"
"Five times unconsciously and twice deliberately. They put me in an institution the first two times." Immanuel laughed maniacally, a wild glint in his eye. His long straggly hair stood up in all directions. "But I'm much better now! I've felt just fine since I decided to take the sufferings of the world on my shoulders."
"I think you'll like working at the university."
Immanuel and I talked like this for many hours until it began to grow dark. We walked out of the cafe and into the cool autumn twilight. As we walked along on a quiet bridge, the amber street lights came on, bathing the pale pastel painted facades of the stately river-front mansions in a sepia glow. Young voices raised in song and the strains of strummed guitars came faint but clear across the dark river flow. And behind the buskers on Charles Bridge, surrounded by the creamy walls of the Castle, there rose a rugged spire, blue as a distant mountain, distinct as a dream. In that moment of epiphany the quiet enchantment of Prague seized me and I knew that I would be sad to hear the voices choked and to see the facades crumble and the spires tumble if apocalypse were more than just the jaded talk of melancholy dreamers.
When I returned to the university building. I found Lucy waiting for me. She smiled brightly at me and I wondered if last night really had been just a dream. "Did you have a nice walk? It's a very pretty city, isn't it?'
"It is," I agreed. "I had a good day. I'm glad to be here."
"You have a few more days to enjoy it," Lucy said. "Professor Masaryk won't be able to see you for at least another week." She lowered her voice. "We're all so busy right now, preparing for Our Boss's visit."
"Is Mister X coming here? When?"
"Why, in five days! We're all so excited. It's such a privilege to see Him. He even spoke to me once," Lucy confided proudly.
"What did he say?"
"He asked me to bring him some mineral water."
"Wow. You lucky thing."
"Oh, Annichka asked me to give you a message."
"Yeah?"
"She said that someone from the Amerikan embassy called and wanted to speak to you." Lucy was looking at me rather closely, I thought.
"Impossible. How would they know that I was here?"
Lucy lowered her voice again. "You know, once Professor Masaryk was a little tipsy and he told me that there are lots of nasty people out there who are always watching everyone who works for The Philanthropist. I'm just telling you so you'll be careful."
"I will," I promised. "I won't tell anyone what goes on in this building."
"I knew you'd understand," Lucy said, skipping a little in her joy. She handed me a book. "Here. This is Our Giver's newest book. I thought you might like to read it. It'll help you see what the University of Truth and Justice is all about."
"I'll read it tonight in that case."
"Take your time. Read it slowly. You'll get more out of it that way. He's such a profound thinker. Shall we go get dinner?"
And so up we went, Lucy and I, up, up to the twenty-first floor and its fine free food and the smiling peaceful faces and the panoramic view of beautiful Prague laid out beneath us in a grid, a darkening cobweb of streets and lanes and courtyards all around us, strung along through the dusk as though spun by an invisible spider, as though the building itself were a dwelling which the spider had prepared for himself, as yet invisibly lurking, waiting for some anticipated signal to show himself, to come forth in all his dread glory.
